"Power to the People Right Now"

Once again my liberal friends are sorely misguided - and I wonder how often it is by the deliberate manipulations of public opinion by their enemies that my liberal friends are so often so easily duped into shabby thinking.

Many of my liberal friends are saying, "Throw the bums out," meaning: throw out the tea party officials and elect new candidates for public office, candidates who more accurately reflect the liberal agenda of appropriately taxing the super-wealthy and their companies rather than shifting it to the poor and middle classes, of protecting individuals through core civil rights from bigotry and arrogation, and of safeguarding social institutions to support people who cannot fully support themselves.

That agenda is superb and I support it with all my heart.

My liberal friends point, accurately enough, to the fact that their opponents - people of the largely Republican "Tea Party" "religious right" persuasion - did just that: the conservatives successfully threw out the people whom they thought of as bums - liberal and middle-of-the-road politicians - and put their arch-conservative candidates into public office.

However, what my liberal friends fail to understand is the system. "Throwing the bums out" isn't going to change a thing - because these vaunted bums are but puppets.

The puppets in elected office are controlled by strings largely financial in nature. It is extremely expensive these days to win elections (especially thanks to the cost of television time), and so candidates must dance to the tune of their biggest campaign contributors. These contributors by definition are going to be overwhelmingly representative of the super-wealthy class and their corporations - and thus will be giving money to the conservative types in office now, and not to their liberal challengers.

And lobbyists, who represent these super-wealthy and their corporations, are likewise strings tying these puppets to the will of their masters.

The same goes for pollsters - it costs a great deal of money to conduct polls, and it is a well-known fact that polls get the results required by whoever is paying for them. (If you want more "conservative" results, for instance, do your telephoning during the day, when more-likely-to-be-liberal young people are off at work and only more-likely-to-be-conservative retirees are at home; be sure to word your questions in a way that just about guarantees the results required.)

And the conservative powers - the super-wealthy and their corporations - now own critical newspaper chains and television networks, and blithely tell people what to think. Liberals failed to hold on to their media outlets, and they now have little opportunity to speak their views widely, outside of a few mavericks like Maddow and Olbermann and Goodman, whose audiences consist of the already liberal, who therefore have little ability to reach those people who listen exclusively to the conservative media's loudmouthed-bigoted-drivel-cum-reportage.

Moreover, the system in place puts a great deal of power into the hands of the incumbents - these conservatives - to gerrymander districts to promote their re-electability (incumbents in the New York State Legislature, for instance, have a ninety-nine-percent re-election rate).

Got a problem with the system? The courts are increasingly stacked with conservative judges. The police and military are there to enforce the laws that protect this system. Want to throw these bums in prison? It isn't going to happen. They will throw you in prison if you gain any power at all to change their system - which isn't likely to happen, given the very self-protective nature of the system. Remember, these stacked courts have decided, against all logic and reality, that companies are persons - except that they live forever, getting more and more powerful, and have even fewer limits on their political influence powers than do the super-wealthy folks who sit in their top-floor boardrooms.

So liberal talk about "throwing the bums out" is fruitless - one, because it will be almost impossible to do so, and two, because the system in place now will either render elected liberals ineffective or (because of the need for financial support) turn them into obedient puppets for the conservative super-wealthy and their companies - case in point, President Obama.

Throw the bums out and their replacements are almost guaranteed to become bums - again, maybe with one or two tolerated maverick exceptions like Sanders, mavericks with no hope of ever gaining sufficient support in their legislative chambers to do more than fume and fuss from their corners and garner applause only from the dwindling cadres of their liberal supporters.

So we must remember that elected officials are only puppets on the strings of the system, with the puppetmasters being the super-wealthy and their companies.

Government is simply legalized crime. The great fourteenth-century sociologist-historian Ibn Khaldūn called government “an institution that prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.” Government is essentially a monopolistic corporation designed to provide services for the wealthy (and only incidentally for others), and mainly protect the wealthy, their wealth and their power.

Remember, the American Revolution was bought and paid for by the wealthy of that day, as a means of halting the bleeding, of taxation taking their profits off to England. Those who were wealthy before the Revolution were even wealthier thereafter; those who were poor before the Revolution remained poor - if not dead in the war.

So throwing the bums out will not make any difference. Ultimately, only revolution might make any difference. History again and again shows that those who are without, as they get hungrier and hungrier, more and more desperate, they get stronger. When eventually they get organized, or simply rise up in a chaotic mass, the super-wealthy will be in great trouble. The super-wealthy know this, and use their media and their politicians and their armed forces to dissipate and control this chaotic power - but some day it will destroy them.

But there is danger in revolution too, as shown by the American Revolution (see above) and the American Civil War (which was only ostensibly about slavery; it was really an economic war between the factory-based economy of the North and the plantation-based economy of the South). If a revolution is bought and paid for by the super-wealthy, it will only further strengthen their grip on power and wealth.

In the time of the American Revolution, the super-wealthy wanted to stop the flow of money from their coffers to England, in the form of taxes. So they bought and paid for a revolution. Today, the super-wealthy are stopping the flow of money from their coffers in the form of taxes by becoming puppetmasters using the strings of the system to control their puppets, elected officials. In other words, they do not want a revolution.

But, if the people get hungry enough, and angry enough, there will be a revolution. All of the media and the courts and the police and the military and the elected officials are in place to prevent this. The system is in place to keep the poor and middle classes powerless. But, as John Lennon asked, "You say you want a revolution?", and as he answered his question in another song, "Power to the people right now."

We liberals are deluding ourselves if we think throwing out the puppets will do any good. Instead, we should focus on throwing out their puppetmasters. The bums to throw out are not the politicians - the bums to throw out are the super-wealthy and their companies.

Keep the Debt Ceiling, but Use It as Intended!

Liberals say ditch the debt ceiling that recently put the United States on the verge of an economic meltdown. They decry how the opposition party, the Republicans, clearly used it as a tool to try to humiliate President Obama.

Liberals point out that other sovereign countries don't have debt ceiling requirements, and seem not to suffer from that lack.

Should the debt ceiling therefore be eliminated?

The Founders intended it as a check on "cowboy wars", on military actions undeclared by presidents. The bombing of Libya is an example of such an action - the Obama administration justifies saying it is not really a war, that it is just a military action, by saying "no lives have been lost", meaning no U.S. lives, like Libyan lives don't count. The Congress would have been justified to use the debt ceiling check to oppose this action for what it is, an undeclared "cowboy war". Using it as they did, however, in an attempt to humiliate a sitting president is, of course, unacceptable.

But this egregious and shameful misuse doesn't justify getting rid of the debt ceiling.

That's because the debt ceiling serves as a necessary "check and balance" against an imperial presidency going off to war without congressional support - and the United States has a long and sorry history of "cowboy wars", and a frightening trend toward an imperial presidency with almost unlimited powers. Indeed, Obama is militarily involved on more fronts than George W. Bush ever was.

The argument that other countries don't have debt ceiling requirements is therefore specious. Other countries, except perhaps Russia and China, don't have a comparable recent history of "cowboy wars", of unilaterally deciding to intervene in the sovereign affairs of other countries. (Russia and China falsely claim, for instance, that their actions in Chechnya and Tibet are police in nature, quelling of civil unrest, denying what they really are - wars of genocide on nations that should by all rights be sovereign countries.)

Of course, government should be conducted on a pay-as-it-goes basis. Of course, any failure to do so should result in the elected or appointed perpetrators being immediately removed from office.

And of course, most wars almost inevitably require a government to go into debt. The ever increasing debt in the United States is not the result of social services to the poor, but of a colossal and fast-growing military budget.

Once government goes over the line into debt, and lightning doesn't strike (nobody gets booted out of office), then there is no more restraint, no more shame, and the temptation to go ever farther into debt is irresitable - the temptation to "solve" budgetary impasses not by negotiation but by giving everybody what they want - giving everybody their big piece of pork to wave in front of the voters back home.

And the larger the deficit grows, and the larger looms the very real possibility of a powerful economic entity, the United States, going entirely bankrupt - and taking the world, economically, down with it.

And this reality is exacerbated by the cuts in social services and the transfer of taxation from the super-wealthy and their corporation to the poorer and middle classes - all while the military budget continues to grow at an alarming rate.

The solution is simple.

Deep cuts in the military budget.

Tax the super-rich at the rate they should be taxed.

Tax corporations rather than giving them public money.

Support social services that enable poor and middle-class people to survive, to get on their feet.

E-Books: Will Literature Survive?

Electronic publishing increasingly looks to be the future of books. As an author of many books - some published electronically, some physically, and some both - perhaps my views are worthy of interest.

On the plus side, internet publishing makes it much easier to get one's work to market, increasing the likelihood that, in the future, people will still read good writing, which is something we can justifiably worry about. With all the competition in "entertainment" (the profit-oriented category of human endeavor that has replaced the aesthetics-oriented category "the arts") literature has precious little to recommend it. It offers no eye-popping special effects, just print on a page. It provides no instant gratification, but demands rather a considerable investment of time to reap its rewards. It is no lazy sit-back-and-enjoy, since one is required to think while reading, and use one's imagination.

Certainly it is fiercely expensive to pay people to perform all the tasks needed to publish a book in physical form, from evaluating submitted manuscripts to manuscript editing to typesetting to copyediting to book-designing to printing to binding to distributing to publicity to retailing. With all of these specialties involved, it's no wonder that there's very little profit to be made in the book industry.

This situation is tougher in some countries, like the United States, where a Supreme Court decision ("Thor Power Tools") significantly increased the tax liability on printed copies of books stored in warehouses and not yet sold. So high is this liability that most publishers avoid warehousing as much as possible; if a book isn't going to sell out quickly, it's not going to be printed.

In the past, the very difficulty of publishing (physical) books created a kind of selectivity - something was far more likely to be really good if it was going to make it into print. Or, put conversely, if someone wrote a really good manuscript, it was bound to be published; the book houses felt they had a public duty to bring good works before the public.

That is to say, publishers used to publish on the basis of not profit but quality. The first works of many of the greatest authors - Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Salinger, for instance - did not sell very many copies, and in fact the publishers expected them not to sell well, but the publishers knew these writers were good, and knew that some day they would be widely recognized for their goodness, and so they stuck by them.

Today, that would never happen. Publishing decisions are based not on quality but on quick profitability - hence (and I could use myself as an example) many great books languish unpublished while a lot of absolute sniveling crap gets heavily promoted. If I had submitted a book like my

novel "Rats Live on no Evil Star" in the 1930s or '40s, you can be sure it would have been quickly published, despite the economic difficulties during the Great Depression and World War II. Already a few hundred people have read it, minimally published though it is, and every one of them has come away from it saying it is one of the best novels he or she has ever read. But, nevertheless, I continue to shop it around from publisher to publisher, in three languages and several countries, and rarely do I even get a serious acknowledgement.

Which is not necessarily to blame the publishing industry. Today, a lot of would-be authors think that book house editors are heartless, tasteless ogres who irrationally and unjustifiably refuse to see that their writings are the next best-seller. But the truth is, with so little profit in the industry, that, unless yours is a household name, or the book or is a quick-sell item, or the book has a movie or toy-industry tie-in, it's not at all likely to be published. Hence all the books written (or so it is claimed) by actors and politicians and convicted criminals (but I repeat myself), and all the magnificent tomes such as "1,001 Uses for a Dead Cat".

On the minus side of electronic publishing:

While the e-book cuts right out most of the costs associated with physical publishing, one downside is that this eliminates a lot of jobs in an economy hurting for employment. And another downside is that valuable skills are being lost. Even physically printed books these days are commonly riddled with errors of typography, grammar, and spelling - if a copyeditor went over the galleys at all (which is increasingly doubtful), then that copyeditor, rushed for time and perhaps poorly trained by a public education which these days fails to convey the rudiments of proper English, utterly failed to do a good job of editing.

What is more, electronic publishing also denies the book lover certain fine tactile and olfactory splendors - the satisfaction of feeling a good book in your hands, the sound as the page is turned, the wonderful scents of ink and glue. It's simply not the same thing to curl up in bed with a Kindle or a Nook.

And, since e-publishing makes it so easy to get one's writing out there before the public, it exponentially multiplies the available amount of unmitigated shameless garbage. Thousands of people can indulge their little ego-trip of self-delusion that their poorly written derivative trash is going to be famous and make them lots of money - eventually they find out that, even through Amazon and the like, nobody will download their turgid nonsense even if it's offered for free.

Yet, if e-publishing helps to keep great literature alive - it is gratifying how many of the classic works of the past are available in electronic format for free - then, with all my qualms, I grudgingly must embrace it.

Moreover, in countries like Panama, where I live, it might help increase the literacy rate, and the interest-in-good-literature rate. And since, for expatriates like me there are virtually no English-language bookstores in the country and the cost of importing either one's existing book collection or mail-ordering new books from abroad is quite costly, one has little choice but to read e-books.

But what about the long-term future?

Electronic records - as anyone who has suffered from a computer crash or the loss of important data for one or another reason - are extremely vulnerable to inadvertent destruction. There is unlikely in some future age the sound of joy from archaeologists finding a treasure-trove of classics like the Nag Hammadi Library, for e-books will have long before have been reduced to mere a random static of free electrons.

What is more, even physical books these days are mostly printed on poor-quality high-acid-content paper, and won't survive more than a few decades at best - especially with the increasing amounts of corrosive pollution in the atmosphere.

Third, public education in most countries is being downsized and defunded, and the emphasis being put not on a well-rounded liberal arts education-for-its-own-sake, but on learning skills sufficient to be competent at some mindless trade. People are being trained by the profit-hungry market to want instant mindless entertainments that require no effort, that "relax" one after a hard work day. Literature is going to be of less and less appeal to such people.

A fourth factor, as noted above, is that the entire publishing industry (from printer to retailer) is run not by people who believe in literature for its own sake, but by bean-counters; if there is no profit in it, it's simply not going to be published, no matter how great a work of art it may be. I expect even free electronic versions of the classics to disappear soon.

So there is a serious possibility that all the literature of this age and past ages, that some unpublished Shakespeare or Dante or Murasaki of today or tomorrow may never be known and appreciated by the world of literature lovers. There is a serious possibility that the very lack of good literature will lead to the disappearance of literature lovers themselves. Tragically and ironically, the concern I raise here may be nonsensical in future ages.

I can hope that the electronic book will save literature, but of that - at this point in history - I cannot be sure.

DISCLAIMER: James David Audlin has written many books, a few of which have been published; most of them (he has thrown in the towel) are now available in electronic format at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesDavidAudlin - and in softcover through Createspace.com - and some in hardcover through Lulu.com

I Don't Want to Hear It!

Ah, my liberal friends. They get themselves up in a lather over how these crazy tea party lunatics are putting through all sorts of nutty bills in state legislatures and even the United States Congress.

I don't want to hear it.

They get all hot and bothered about how desperately needed social services are being cut, how schools are being dumbed down and turned into training schools for dead-end jobs, and how the military-industrial complex gets all the public money.

I don't want to hear it.

They grind their teeth audibly about how the ultra-rich and the big corporations are getting out of paying any taxes, while more and more of a tax burden is being dumped on the backs of lower- and middle-class citizens.

I don't want to hear it.

They get steamed how the religious right (neither religious nor right) wants to get rid of everybody but the white, heterosexual, evangelical Christian, politically conservative.

I don't want to hear it.

My liberal friends don't want to hear it, but they have no one to blame but themselves for the state things are in. Their complacency is to blame. We're in this situation because my liberal friends got lazy and comfortable, and, while they were sleeping at the switch, the crackpots were everything that the liberals should have been - organized, with a clear uniting plan - and they, not we, got their people into Congress, they got their people onto every court from the local level to the Supreme Court, they took over the news media.

Some of my liberal friends still want to complain and belly-ache. They'll be whining about George W. Bush a hundred years from now.

I don't want to hear it!

Others of my liberal friends set all sorts of silly goals, like impeaching the boneheads on the Supreme Court, or getting rid of the Electoral College.

Nope, I don't want to hear that, either!

But this doesn't mean that I think we should just give up. That has never been my philosophy. But we have to decide our best course of action.

We're tilting at windmills if we think we can get anybody impeached when their friends control most of the state legislatures and the Congress.

And we're out of our minds if we think we can get rid of the Electoral College such that there is direct voting for the office of president; this requires a Constitutional Convention, and my liberal friends forget that the wackos are aching to call a such a convention to order - and once it's been convened, anything can happen, literally; any demagogue can stand up and say let's change the Constitution so only aardvarks can vote for presidential candidates, and if that demagogue persuades a majority to vote for it, it's the Constitution! And, since their friends in the various state legislatures will be choosing the convention delegates, their agenda will win out, not ours.

Instead, we need to think in terms of BUILDING BLOCKS. We need to start by continuing to point out the insanity that's going on (tax breaks for the rich and their companies, removing needed social services, attempts to privatize or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, fighting oil wars, trashing the Bill of Rights, and so on). We need to build a groundswell to elect to state legislatures and the Congress individuals who are more honorable, and more accountable to their constituents ​and not their big contribu​tors or their party bosses.

Then, a decent Congress can impeach these nincompoops, and presidents like Obama can lead more effectively and appoint better people to the Supreme Court.

My talk about building blocks like this frustrates a lot of my liberal friends because it's slow, and it's frustrating because it doesn't yield the big results they want immediately.

Well, maybe so. But it has one advantage over silly talk about impeaching judges and canning the Electoral College.

It's a goal that we acually have a chance to reach.

We have to remain strong, consistent, and united. Remember, these blankety-blanks don't just control the Supreme Court and the Congress. They control a critical mass of (what used to pass for) print and broadcast news media. This is why it's going to be a serious uphill battle. But we have no choice if we want to save this world.

After all, what I'm recommending is exactly what the Tea Party wack jobs did. They were smart. They were patient. They set themselves a step-by-step plan. They first repeated, over and over, the same consistent message - that "we" need to elect people who think like "we" do. Then they put up candidates who provided that opportunity; and these candidates won.

This is a proven method - our opponents have proven it works.

Now we too must do the same.

So stop whining, my liberal friends. I don't want to hear it!

Instead, start repeating as often as possible to your friends who've been reprogrammed by the Tea Party nutbags our consistent point - that the creeps they've put into public office are endangering not just the financial and moral integrity and safety of the United States, but of the world.

We must put up candidates who repeat these same points.

We must not give up; we must continue to strive to win hearts and minds.

And this, after all, is why I wrote this column, and continue to speak in this blog. I believe in what I am saying!

If you believe it too, start saying it!

Winehouse and Terrorism

Surely all reasonable people feel a deep sense of grief for the death of so many innocent people recently at the hands of madmen. From Arizona to Texas to Norway these madmen have decided to make their point in dramatic fashion by engaging in the wanton destruction of life.

I share those feelings of grief.

Surely all reasonable people also feel somewhat frightened - for there is an unpredictability about these events. Who can possibly predict when and where one of these crazies will strike?

I share those feelings of fear.

But I also feel angry.

I am angry with politicians who use violent rhetoric in reference to those who oppose their partisanship. I am angry with politicians who even go so far as to visualize their hate; Sarah Palin, a maverick lunatic politician of astonishingly limited acumen (that means you're stupid, Sarah), put images of gunsight targets on the faces of politicians she hoped to see lose their re-election bids. And I get increasingly angry at these politicians when they piously deny using such rhetoric or insist that it had no relation to the decision of crackpots who go out shooting and bombing -- in support of these politicians' views.

And I am angry with the news media. They play up the death of Amy Winehouse - even though no one should be surprised that a drug addict should be found dead like thousands of other drug addicts; her considerable musical talent does not make it any more noteworthy, since dozens, at least, of famous pop musicians have likewise died from drug complications. And while playing up Winehouse they play down the mass murders at around the same time in Norway and Texas.

Where is the outrage on the part of the media? Where is their sense of priorities as to what is a serious news story and what is hardly more than entertainment?

And I am angry with the public, worldwide, because I don't get the sense that very many people share my anger with the politicians and the media. I hear them "isn't it too bad" -ing about Winehouse, and the subject of Norway hardly ever comes up.

Today, the media are almost universally owned by large companies - and the people in charge do not demand impartial news coverage from their employees. They do not demand serious raking in the muck of evil that is drowning this world. No, they demand profits! So news is put up for its entertainment value. Giggly anchor people chitter-chat with giddy reporters, and rarely do the real events get serious attention.

Somewhere along the line - probably Roone ("Wide World of Sports") Arledge - realized that television news could be a profit-maker instead of a highly respected public service. Out with the Walter Cronkite types. In with the reporter-cum-celebrity and the ditzy weather girl with the big you-know-whats. Out with serious reports that lasted (can you believe it?) as much as five minutes, and in with little puff pieces no more than a minute in length. Out with reporting, in with inane banter among the boneheads in the studio. Out with integrity, in with ratings.

This is why the no-surprise death of Amy Winehouse gets bigger headlines than nearly one hundred people unexpectedly slaughtered in Norway at the hands of unmitigated evil.

What is more, those large companies demand the news that their employees publish to reflect their political values, to support the reactionary boneheads who call for violence against anyone who dares to disagree. Rupert Murdoch just let his people get a little sloppy. What his media empire does is done by every other news outfit from Cumulus to Fox.

And I am angry at how the news media slant their reporting in the direction of racism. Remember Fox News accusing Barack and Michelle Obama of committing a "terrorist fist bump"? Nothing has changed since.

It is immensely curious that news descriptions of the dual massacres in Norway included the word "terrorist" -- up until it was determined that no Muslim extremists were involved. Once it became clear that the, ahem, alleged perpetrator was ostensibly Christian, the word "terrorist" disappeared.

(Let me be clear in passing that Islam and Christianity, like every faith, denounce and decry violence and killing altogether, except perhaps in self-defense. They do not call for the murder of people of other faiths. They do not condone the murder of innocents in order to draw attention to the murderer's religious or political views. As far as I am concerned, anyone who kills for any reason other than unavoidable self-defense or the defense of innocents is not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or anything else but a violent hypocrite. And, contrary to what you've been told by uninformed know-it-all news media types, Islam does not condone terrorism or mass-murder, or the forcible conversion of non-Muslims. In fact, the Qur'an clearly states that if you take one life it is as if you have killed all of humanity, and that conversely if you save one life it is as if you have saved all of humanity. There is more about Jesus in the Qur'an than in the New Testament. Judaism and Islam are incredibly close: kosher and halal are just about identical, the Tanakh is sacred scripture to both, and both have noble heritages of excellence in historiography, law, and philosophy. And so on!)

So why would the news media describe a mass-murderer of Muslim background as a terrorist but describe a mass-murderer of Christian background as just a mass-murderer?

Terrorism, simply put, is the undertaking of dramatically violent actions in order to inspire terror in the general population. All of these mass murders of late clearly fit this definition.

Some people prefer to say that it is the undertaking of dramatically violent actions in order to publicize some (usually religious or quasi-religious) ideology. But even by this definition, the horrible events in recent weeks still fit; a madman who kills innocent people to dramatize his ideology that Muslims are destroying Europe, like the wacko who killed innocent people in the Oklahoma City government office building, or the lunatic who killed innocent people on the streets of Phoenix, is clearly a terrorist.

Therefore, if the news media only call Muslims "terrorists", and not Christians, they are implying that Christians are not capable of terrorism. They are implying that Islam somehow condones terrorism - which it absolutely does not! - and that Christianity opposes it. They are guilty of racism.

Moreover, as a friend pointed out to me, the news media talk about ostensibly Christian mass murderers as "supposedly" Christian, or "fringe" Christian (the unspoken axiom being that "real" Christians supposedly don't commit acts of terrorism) -- but they talk about ostensibly Muslim terrorists as "hardline" or "hardcore" Muslims (the unspoken axiom being that Islam supposedly orders its followers to go out and kill non-Muslims).

Again, this is racism in the news media.

Again, the news media are, intentionally or not, encouraging people to hate and even inciting them to do something with that hatred.

Again, the news media are ignoring the very real possibility that some unhinged mind will be so caught up in this racism that the individual will go off and kill a whole lot of people.

Meanwhile, I hear the news media decry Muslims because there is (so they say) no strong outcry against the evil madmen who, under the cloak of religion, wreak horrible death on innocents. The sad fact is that many Muslims are afraid to speak out, afraid to draw attention to themselves, afraid of attracting the venomous hatred of non-Muslims. Many other Muslims know that their efforts to speak out will only be thwarted; most news media are unwilling to publish the views of moderate Muslims because they prefer to perpetuate the fiction that "all Muslims are out to kill us".

Words are powerful instruments - as Voltaire pointed out, they are mightier than weapons. And every weapon-wielding terrorist, it always turns out, was whipped into a frenzy by rhetoric in the public media.

Osama wanted to destroy the U.S. government? He's succeeded; these teabaggers wouldn't ever have gotten into power without him. He wanted to destroy the U.S. economy? He's succeeded; the money being poured into the Pentagon is wrecking the financial infrastructure. He wanted to prove the imbecility of most Americans? He did, by saying exactly what he was going to do - and then doing it.

Meanwhile, the news media continue to live in an imaginary world of people just like them - white conservative Christians. They refuse to see how most of the world is not only anything but white or conservative Christian, but is getting angrier and angrier at the bigoted cowboy hubristic arrogance of the United States. The media continue to give insult to others, like saying "jihad" means "holy war" (which it doesn't), calling for a "Crusade" against Muslims (which is like calling for a Holocaust against Jews), and calling Muslim mass-murderers Muslim terrorists while excusing Norwegian mass-murderers from being called Christian or terrorist!

One can only hope for the day to return in which the politician was a pillar of probity, whose measured words were of peace and goodness, whose promises were kept, whose lives were exemplary.

One can only hope for the day to return in which the news media return to their primary and only proper function - to determine the truth, even when it is hidden, and to tell it fairly and dispassionately. And for their opinion editors to express outrage for any and all acts of violence, for any and all racism and bigotry, no matter who is responsible and against whom it is directed.

Disclaimer: James David Audlin was for many years a newspaper opinion page editor.

The Wrong Battle

My liberal friends are pleased that the constituency of such legislative bodies as the Congress today better reflects the actual makeup of the citizenry, that there are in the Congress more people of African and Latino and Native ancestry, more women, more gays, and so on.

Yet, at the same time, I see the Congress getting farther and farther from the actual beliefs and preferences of most of the citizenry. Notwithstanding the apparently greater congruence with the actual makeup of the citizenry of the United States, there is a clear press to tax the poor and not the rich, its determination to send the children of the poor off into foreign wars over (let's be honest) oil.

I wonder whether perhaps we liberals have chosen the wrong battle - we have sought to elect people to the Congress who superficially resemble us (different colors, faiths, and sexual orientations, etc.) - we have sought to elect people who are Black, etc., simply because they are Black, etc. - but we have failed to elect people whose views and voting records more properly reflect our belief in tolerance and respect for all people.

Why is this so?

I believe it is because

1) The powerful have bought much of the news media - the media empires of arrogant rich like Rupert Murdoch, the few newspaper chains owning a great majority of newspapers, the few companies that own an overwhelming number of radio and television stations. They then proceed to twist the news to serve their goals of gaining even more power and money.

2) The powerful have coopted the Congress and other governmental institutions. Members of both houses of the Congress vote at the beck and call of not their constituents (as provided for in the Constitution) but of their party bosses and their powerful lobbyists and campaign donors. This means, in effect, we have fallen into the monstrosity of taxation without representation. We are forced to pay taxes that support a governmental institution that fails, utterly, to do our will as a people. And this, ultimately, means democracy, if ever the United States had it - rather than its being effectively a corporation of, by, and for the rich white oligarchy - is now destroyed in that country.

Winning the Political Debate through Respect

Many people suggest that people like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are publicity hounds with little real substance, and they are correct. But I strongly disagree when they go on to aver that we who counter their stupid mouthings are actually fueling their rise in the public consciousness, and that we should stop talking about them such that eventually they go away.

There is a vast voting public that adores people like Palin and Trump. If those of us who find them deficient stop talking about them, that’s not going to change the minds of their supporters. They will keep watching Faux News, and its constant vomitous view that Trailing and Pimp, I mean Palin and Trump, are serious and highly electable candidates. Rather, I think it is our responsibility to keep on, over and over, countering their stupidities, challenging their bigotry, and displaying what laughingstocks they are – so slowly, bit by bit, we can get through to that mass of voters who think they are serious presidential timber.

In recent decades, the GOP has preferred presidential candidates who are seen as “electable” more than “capable of governing”. That has resulted in at least two presidents, Ronald and George W., in recent decades whose intellectual acumen was far below the standard set by Carter, Clinton, and Obama. Even if we assume that Donald and Sarah will never be presidential candidates, they are not going to “go away” if we liberals stop talking about her. Indeed, they will continue to be a force with a significant ability to shape the GOP agenda – because they will continue to be a beloved icon in the minds of millions of Americans who love Trump as a media figure (“You’re fired!”) and adore Palin for her folksiness, her perceived one-of-us nature, her supposed sincerity and commitment to the values that they hold dear.

Those of us who oppose these two people and the falsehoods and bigotry they spew must bear in mind that there are two very different sets of values and priorities here. What for us is are absolutes – equal treatment under the law, blindness to race, public assistance for those who cannot make it independently, and so on – are not high on the list of values and priorities held just as fervently by those who admire Donnie and Sarah Osmond.

These latter people rate higher strong borders, conservative Christian ideals such as heterosexual marriage only and anti-abortionism, and getting rid of a perceived inundation of Muslims and Latinos who threaten the public order and supposedly harm the economy by taking jobs away from white Americans or taking public assistance that white Americans pay for.

Yes, these ideals are not always based on facts. Yes, they ignore a lot of realities. But we must remember that, conservatives, from their perspective, are equally firmly convinced that our ideals are not always based on facts and ignore a lot of realities. And, to them, Faux News and Trailing and Pump are refreshingly straightforward with a clear presentation of what to conservatives is the truth.

We must remember Daniel Boorstin’s point in The Image, that most Americans prefer the believable, comforting lie to the complex, difficult-to-understand, and discomforting truth. Sarah and Donnie provide this public with exactly the kind of comforting, easily digested pablum that they want to hear.

We who oppose such conservatism must constantly remain careful not to fall into the trap of thinking we are the objective ones, we are the smart ones, we are the ones who get it, and the conservatives aren’t. The minute we think like that, any possibility of real dialogue with conservative folks, toward the goal of mutual understanding, let alone persuading them of their incorrect assumption of pseudofacts, is over. We have to remember that many conservative folks (I am not counting Ms. Palin in this number) are just as intelligent, just as caring, just as concerned, as we. To say we are the intelligent, caring, concerned ones is a kind of elitism - the very same elitism of which we often blithely accuse the conservatives. So we must be strong and eloquent in our views, but respectful of the views of conservatives, and of them as persons. If we “talk down” to them, they will be on the defensive and, as a defensive reaction, close their ears. Only if we communicate with them respectfully – denying their assumptions of false facts but respecting their right to believe them – will dialogue be possible.

Without dialogue, all we will have is a constantly intensifying environment in which two political perspectives each try to outscream the other and neither of them actually listens to the other. Of course I support the liberal agenda, but I believe that that agenda will only succeed through dialogue. And dialogue will only be successful if both sides are willing to respect the fact that the other side is not a bunch of stupid idiots who just refuse to get it, but rather reasonable people who sincerely hold opposing values and priorities.
Of course there are struggling poor and middle-class conservatives who also, just like us, often have to work two jobs or bicycle to work or cut back on expenses because of a mismatch between income and expenses. But they see their personal economic woes as rooted in hugely bloated public budgets (federal, state, local). And they put the responsibility for that bloat on tax-and-spend Democrats. They believe that Democcrats are providing costly foreign aid to countries that don’t deserve it, costly social services to people who haven’t worked to help pay for it, and are eroding core values such as marriage and the right of individuals to protect themselves from dangerous new populations in the United States.

We need to start by finding points of agreeement – for instance, that yes, government budgets are indeed bloated. But we need to point out that NPR and foreign aid are about one percent of the federal budget, and that public assistance costs far less in the long run than letting people sink into chronic illness, homelessness, and hunger and being driven to the inevitable consequences of widespread plagues and crime.

For those who are not on public assistance, or those who view the public assistance they receive as “earned” by their or their spouses’ years of employment (and therefore as theirs by entitlement), public assistance is not a right but an earned dividend. Again, we must remember that conservatives have a different priority system from us; they see people who in their view have never worked, which to them is equivalent to being lazy or stupid, getting public assistance to which in their view they are not entitled, and which is paid for in their view not by these lazy/stupid people, but they themselves (the working masses who hold this view). Of course I and my fellow liberals see this view as not rooted in facts. But to millions of Americans, most of whom are perfectly intelligent people, these are absolutes just as firmly believed as our absolutes. And we liberals need to get this through our heads, or our efforts to open up the minds of conservatives, and to stop the outrages of the teaparty rightwingnuts will be in vain.

We need to keep pointing out that a representative democracy such as ours is extremely vulnerable to corruption – that lobbyists, PACs, pollsters, legislative map drawers, etc., have more power over our elected representatives than we their constituents. And that our representatives vote at the beck and call of party bosses, not we their constituents - i.e., at the beck and call of people elected from other regions. We must emphasize the fact that political parties are not constitutional, unenshrined in the Constitution, that they are a political power grab. The Constitution was framed to enshrine the goal that individuals represent their constituents, not their party bosses or campaign funders. The United States adapted its Constitution from the Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, which of course continues to govern the Six Nations – but (except still occasionally in the New England Town Meeting motif) it has failed to be a true direct democracy in which the people, meeting together, discuss and argue the issues as equals and instruct their representatives to represent the consensus derived by discussion and compromise on the part of the people.